Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez has thanked fans of the club for not taking the drastic decision to protest against owner Mike Ashley.
Ashley took-over the Magpies in 2007 and is hated by most of the club’s fans. Under his ownership, the club has twice been relegated from the Premier League and struggled for consistency. He has also been strongly criticized for a failure to provide his managers with sufficient funds to create a quality side over the years.
For more than a decade, fans have been calling for Ashley to sell his stake in the club. It never happened, possibly due to difficulties in negotiating with Ashley.
The Magpie Group which is a collective of Newcastle die-hards had been planning to stage a protest against the dreadful reign of Ashley, but have since decided to scrap the plan following renewed hope of a potential takeover of the club.
It is a good decision from Newcastle fans to not stage the public protest. Ashley has been dreadful and mis-managed the club, no doubt. However, there are bound to be some fans who will act unruly in a public protest. Not only will this harm the image of the club going forward and put it in the media spotlight for the wrong reasons but it could also put off potential investors from buying Ashley’s stakes in the club as they could be led into thinking that it has an unruly set of fans.
Speaking ahead of his sides clash against Wolves at St James Park on Sunday, Benitez said as quoted by The Mirror:
“I have to say thank you to the fans because my message has been very clear all this time – this group of players, they deserve support because they work so hard until the last minute in every game, so I think it’s fair for them.
“If the fans appreciate that, then they want to support the team in the way that they were supporting before, but even more because everybody will be more focused on not wasting too much time with these questions and answers about if it is affecting the team or not.
“I think it will be good, it will be positive and hopefully we can get three points and everybody will be happy.”
“I think it will be good, it will be positive and hopefully we can get three points and everybody will be happy.”
